NE Colorado today

So I had a dream last night that Akron was getting hit by a tornado, I woke up today and now there is a tornado risk and 3000j of cape there haha. Part of me wants to chase out there today to see if it comes true. Kinda weird timing, epecially not knowing the forecast for today until now. There is stuff firing off the palmer right now, but things will develop in the northeast corner and may produce large hail and a possible brief tornado.

Denver at 2:22pm MDT

June 23rd 2009

coming soon

June 23rd 2009

There is a slight risk and now a 5% tornado risk along the front range today, I'm going to have to take this day to chase, one of those given things. I was suppose to hang out with my girlfriend this evening but heres her quote " I am telling you to go chasing like the good meteorologist girlfriend that I am, but when I get off work I will be chasing fo shizzle" lol. Could I ask for a better mate?
So on that note i will update later whats been going on lately, with the transition of the season I havent had a lot of time to update my blog lately.

June 17th 09

Coming Soon

June 16th 09

Coming soon

June 15th 09

Today my tornado forecast point is near Sharon Springs Kansas, with supercell development in far eastern Colorado. So well see how that pans out, its going to be earlier initiation as well so Ill have to be out there ready.

Colorado has severe/tornado risk again

I will be chasing in Colorado today as its close to home. Its nice chasing everyday and getting some good action close to home. Ive never seen a funnel cloud day after day like this before, pretty crazy. Maybe tomorrow Ill have a couple more funnel cloud pictures up once again lol, but id rather have a tornado.

Pre June 15th 09

Tomorrow looks good for storms once again. I would like to see the mid level winds pick up a bit but the 300mb might take over for those. The dewpoints will be in the 50s tomorrow for palmer divide to the east. I hope the Southeast component holds up, if it does may see a tornado tomorrow or at least funnel clouds again. Crazy times for Colorado, funnely days this week. :)

June 14th 2009

Funnels near Kingsburg, just south of I-76 today

June 13th 2009-Funnels/1Tornado

Funnels and a tornado spawned in Morgan County today, we saw two funnels on the west side of 52, then the 3rd one touched down. We couldn't see the ground because of the trees in town but we saw the vortex extending its way down. Someone saw the circulation on the ground up north, so not an obvious tornado for us but it was technically a tornado that we saw.

Colorado...Again today

June 11th 2009

On the way down to Southeastern Colorado we intercepted this beautiful meso near Akron, CO. Somewhat looked tornadic for a little bit.

Skinner, Becca and I went down to lamar to chase the cell that came from the Pueblo area. This was a monster beast of a supercell. It had good rotation and striation for hours, was definitly a long track long lived, however it did not produce a tornado which is crazy. Im thinking the surface winds may have had something to do with it, but the way this looked all afternoon with the wind shear/rotation its suprising one didnt drop. We then punched the hail core got up to tennisball sized hail was a blast!!

Again

Another round for Colorado today. A little bit more of a tornado risk, but well see. Skinner and I plus production will be out today, yesterday was chaos chasing solo, trying to drive, navigate, film and report, with multiple weather hazards in severe to extreme levels, so it will be a lot more relaxing and organized hopefully.

June 10th 2009

Got on a severe cell off Fort Collins and it produced a funnel over Windsor, filmed it from Greeley. Then followed the cell as it went south east, cored the cell got golfball hail, then saw the hp beast, then cored it again trying to get off dead end roads right when it looked like it was going to produce a tornado and that was when the roggen tornado was reported. The winds in the core started to tilt my vehicle. I then got back in front of it, had to drive home because i forgot my wallet and I was low on gas, drove on some dirt roads with severe flash flooding, cars almost got swept away.

Tornado risk for Colorado again

Today there is a little bit of a tornado risk once again, a severe thunderstorm warning just was issued for laramar and weld counties, my alert system was going off like crazy so I'm jeting out of here like a firefighter lol.

June 9th 2009

Today skinner made a great forecast, we waited around southeast of dodge city for a couple hours this afternoon. The cell of the day and tornado was exactly where we waited, however we left!!! an hour before it happened we got storm add and went to the cells near Wichita KS and then it happened. We saw an awesome cell, good striations and it almost tornadoed. It is good to see that I can have confidence in Skinners forecasting after today, and that he really can think ahead of the system. Production was with us today and it made another great segment.



Ok now I know alot of people are wondering well what about Colorado. We were not there... why do u ask? because it wasnt the best target. Yes it had a risk and a chance but we wanted to go with what would be the cell of the day...Dodge City, KS. When we left Colorado this morning we knew tornadoes were possible, if you dont believe me read my status on facebook from earlier this morning. Luckily it was just a funnel cloud, we take a lot of chances to get the best shot, so sometimes that means leaving the storms at home.

Funnel Cloud in Broomfield

June 9th 2009

Skinner, Chris (Production) and I are headed to Coldwater, KS right now for our initial target area. We had an early start getting ready in Denver after leaving greeley at 5am. Still some forecasting to come to narrow things down but today will be pretty much cut and dry where we will want to be. I am pretty confident we will see a tornado today

Tornado Risk has been extended into Northern and Eastern Colorado!

FORECAST SOUNDINGS E OF THE TRIPLE POINT AND NEAR THE
OUTFLOW/WARM FRONT SHOW FAVORABLE PROFILES FOR SUPERCELLS
CAPABLE OF PRODUCING VERY LARGE HAIL...DAMAGING WINDS...
AND ISOLATED STRONG TORNADOES.

June 8th 2009

Today started out looking pretty good, with the surface obs, the Denver cyclone setting up, the low level wind shear and some cape. I decided Palmer would be the best target because of that cape, and low level stuff, up north there was better bulk shear, but not as much cape. I saw this storm develop over Denver, as I was driving i could see some great wind shear, I was wondering if it was going to tornado. As I got more out in the open we saw a funnel cloud half way extended to the ground not far in front of us. It dissipated quickly and then the storm weakened. It did have some nice looking mammatus clouds and rain bows lol. Since the storm looked like crap we went and explored an abandoned missile silo and I ran through the sprinklers.

June 7th 2009

Today was an epic day for colorado, there were many tornadoes touching down in Denver and east off I 70. Skinner Becca and I were chasing north near greeley, got some large hail but we were late to the show off the palmer. If you go to www.thedenverchannel.com then you will see numerous pictures of the tornadoes that touched down in denver. Because of a shortwave, windshear, and good upslope with a good moisture supply these tornadoes had the environment needed to form. Becca was teaching me about the Denver Vorticity Convergence Zone where flow and pressure perturbations over the palmer with the downslope component from the mountains. Here is a video of a collaberation of a set of pictures I took every second of the meso that was the Denver tornado producer when it was east of deer trail. We did see a tornado start to form, there was a funnel above and circulation on the ground, but did not condensate all the way. Was a frustrating day that we missed the action.

June 6th 2009

We had an early start today, as we were chasing in Nebraska about the same area as yesterday. Our production team was with us today. We got a nice supercell with a meso, some quarter sized hail. The cell took til dark to produce a tornado so we missed it, but it was tornado warned most the time we were on it. It was a fun day, we ended it with dinner in North Platte. Was a heck of a time driving home as we were exhausted.

June 5th 2009

Today we waited around in Northeastern Colorado for most of the day, Skinner had a forecast that there would be supercells in our part of the state. For some reason it did not verify, and we were late to the show in Wyoming, part of it was also waiting for a production crew member to meet us on highway 14 to bring us a lense and we were low on gas and had to go to sterling to fuel up first. After it got late we decided it was a bust in Colorado and went north to the cells in Nebraska. We saw some nice structure, and it looked like it wanted to tornado again really bad. But we missed the tornado that lasted for 20 min and was the most researched tornado in history near Cheyenne since Vortex 2 was on the cell. This is a day we are not going to like to talk about.

June 4th 2009

Chris Yates in the Station Van, doing B-Roll shots of him

Our second production crew

ummm... the skin and shep what else

On the way to the first cell out of Wyoming

Second cell

Today was a great day, production wise we got a lot of productive work done, saw some great storms and had a great time doing it.